Score Wars

Who’ll be the master gamers at Meow Wolf’s First Annual Score Wars: Official Galaga World Championship? Who will win airfare to the worldwide live-streaming event, March 29 – April 1, that makes them world’s best? Who’s going to be the world’s best Galaga player and take home the $10,000 dollar prize? The answer to that is any one. Possibly you!

Everyone Can Play

In the cult classic film The Wizard, Jimmy Woods rises from an unheard of kid of about eight to a world champion video gamer. In the similarly-themed, though quite different, cult film The Last Starfigher, Alex Rogan, an average teen in a small town, gets the highest score on a video game and becomes a heroic Starfighter pilot for an alien culture on the brink of extinction. There is also, of course, The Who’s Tommy, which through its several iterations from an album to a film and Broadway musical follows the rise of a young man named Tommy from a virtually unknown person to the world champion of pinball.

We see video games, culturally, as a leveling sport. No one starts at the top. In athletics, people may have been given athletic bodies through chance, making them more or less prone to success. With video games, it’s continual application and practice that gives the gamer his or her edge. In other words, the bar is approachable for anyone capable of seeing and operating controls with their hands. In video gaming we all start with the same handicap: an unexplored digital world.

Qualifying for Pro and Amateur Levels: Two ways to play

Meow Wolf’s First Annual Score Wars: Galaga World Championship has two tiers of competition: the pro and the amateur level. Don’t let these names confuse you though because anyone can apply to either entry point. Pro-Level entries require a pre-qualifying score. Details for pre-qualified entries are defined here. The skinny though is that anyone can apply to the pro-level pre-qualifier. If you don’t make the pro-level cut you can enter the amateur tournament on-site at Meow Wolf during the Score Wars event on the first Thursday and Friday, March 29 and 30, through a qualifying round.

From those who provide pre-qualifying scores and who are accepted into the pro-tournament, seven top scorers will receive complimentary travel to Score Wars to participate in the event.

The Event

Held at Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, NM. March 29 thru April 1. Score Wars will be broadcast live on Twitch. The competition will take place in a new, custom built Meow Wolf environment, made specifically for Score Wars: Galaga World Championship. Other classic games will be exhibited also as High Score holders play to beat their own records for games like Nibbler, Frogger, Centipede, and more!

Amateur-Level Pot: $1,500!!!

The Amateur competition has two days of qualifying rounds. To qualify amateur players will compete on-site in Santa Fe on March 29 and 30. On the third day the top ten qualifying scorers will duke it out through Galaga in a Amateur-Level single-elimination tournament. The winner of the final competition is awarded a $1,500 top-prize!

Pro-Level Pot: $10,000!!

The first rounds of the Pro-Level competition take place March 29 through March 31. Pro-Level players will attempt to break the current world record for Galaga through Marathon Mode play. The highest score achieving a new world record will be awarded a crowdfunded cash prize.

On day four, April 1, Pro-Level players will meet head-to-head in a single-elimination tournament! Competing in Arcade More. The winner receives a $10,000 top-prize. Second-place receives $5,000 and third-place, $2,500.

Click here for complete rules and for how to pre-qualify for Pro-Level competitions.